Destiny 2: The Setup

In 2001 the spotlight found JJ Abrams with the debut of his spy drama Alias, followed up by the cultural phenomenon that was Lost in 2004. One of the biggest things these shows did that other serialized programs didn’t do up to that point (or didn’t do to the same level) was ending every episode in the middle of a story at some dramatic moment and beginning the next by wrapping up that cliffhanger, only to create another cliffhanger by the end of the episode. Previously this sort of thing had been reserved for season finales of a show that either was planning on coming back with a bang or hoping to earn a renewal based on the audience’s – and thus, hopefully, the producers – hatred of loose ends. One of the best season finales that I can recall was Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Best of Both Worlds”, where Picard is captured by the Borg and turned into one of them, forcing Riker to issue the order to fire on his former commander just before the credits rolled. This was such a huge moment in the series and having to wait months until the next season to get the resolution was painful to many. And it was this kind of thing that Alias and Lost did just about every week, setting things up in such a way that almost without fail drew the audience back to the shows each week just to see how the dangling plot thread was handled. It was a series of setups and payoffs that made these shows so popular, even in the midst of increasingly far-fetched situations and ever-fewer answers to the growing number of questions. Other shows soon adapted themselves to this paradigm, creating their own regular narrative hooks designed to bring viewers back each week, though many times without going to the same levels of absurdity, intensity, or sheer frequency as Alias and Lost.

In the world of video games Bungie has learned this lesson as well, creating a series of narrative setups and payoffs with the story of Destiny 2 that keeps drawing players back in. The thing with games is it’s a lot easier to have multiple storylines going concurrently that are simultaneously more difficult to manage well. With the recent release of The Witch Queen expansion, it’s natural to have a new set of storylines going on, but even before the release, Bungie was working on developing the narrative hooks that would cause players to return for the new expansion. In the last season of the game, the narrative revolved around Savathun, the titular Witch Queen herself, working with players and other characters to rid herself of the worm parasite within her, which drove her to use the power known as the Darkness, which is in apparent opposition to the Light, which players use for their own fantastic powers. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the setup was essentially freeing Savathun of the Darkness, which freed her to “steal” the Light, which is the primary focus of the Witch Queen storyline – how did it happen, what’s she going to do with it, and how do we stop her?

I won’t go into spoiler territory, since the campaign is so new, but suffice to say that while the storyline wraps things up for the most part, in true Abrams fashion it also simultaneously brings up a whole bunch of additional questions that players will want answers to. The ongoing storyline in the game is built this way: creating a setup and giving a payoff from season to season, drawing players interested in the narrative along for quite a while. While it’s impossible to say when this rollercoaster might end – and when the inevitable lulls in excitement might occur – my guess is Bungie’s plan for the story follows a similar path as before, largely wrapping up the big story beats ahead of setting a hook for the next expansion. At this point, whether they’ve been following Abrams’ playbook or not, Bungie has been following this rhythm for a little while now with Destiny’s storytelling. It took them a little while to really get going, but they seem to be on a pretty solid path. And given that both of the next expansions have already been announced (Lightfall in 2023, The Final Shape in 2024) I’m hoping that Bungie won’t run into Abrams’ other legacy: convoluted plotlines written on the fly, so overfilled with unanswered questions that interest tapers off before the story finishes.

There’s a couple of key takeaways, as I think more about this. First, not every game could support this kind of narrative structure. The world of Destiny has been designed in such a way that, while players regularly have villains to target and missions to accomplish, the larger struggle of Light vs Darkness remains relatively unchanged. Sure, the latest servant of the Darkness may get taken out, but the conflict remains. It’s kind of comic-book-like in this regard, where the hero may defeat the villain, but there’s always more crime around the corner, more evil to defeat. And while other games may acknowledge this kind of ongoing struggle, their stories are most often framed in terms of “the player must ultimately defeat this single opponent in order to prevail”. Link defeats Ganon, Mario defeats Bowser, and so on. Though these heroes have their victory in a continuum of conflicts, the broader perspective is largely ignored within the individual games. Sure, you’ve got things like the encyclopedic Hyrule Historia which outlines the entire conflict between good and evil spanning all of the games, but in the middle of any given game, it’s just about Link defeating Ganon. Destiny, and other games that acknowledge the ongoing nature of conflict within themselves are a little bit closer to reality, in this regard.

But, and this is my second takeaway, there are risks inherent to this kind of storytelling that others don’t have to face. First, not everyone wants to have a story of ongoing conflict. Sure, maybe it’s more realistic, but we often want to enjoy stories of heroism to escape the realities we’re faced with every day. Being reminded that there’s always another bad guy is a little less escapism than players might like, and runs the risk of burning players out on an endless quest. Second, when you create an ongoing story like Destiny and other live-service games do, there’s a lot to keep track of, and any inconsistency is going to be caught and pointed out by those who are paying attention. Here again there’s a little less escapism as things begin to mirror our own day to day reality. As a result, live service games aren’t for everyone. Sometimes we just want the hero to win and be done with it, sometimes we don’t want to have to know who was where, when, and why, instead just hand-waving away inconsistencies with the phrase “it’s just a game”.

In spite of these challenges for Destiny to overcome, the story of the Witch Queen - while finished for now - has created a setup for more stories to be told. I, for one, hope the payoff is worth it.